Read: The Girl on the Train

Off late, my appetite for reading has increased tenfold. Clearly I have turned into a bookie. I love reading and especially the feel of an old fashioned paper books in my hands. That being said, I do appreciate the ease of E-readers and I too read on my kindle at times, esp when I can't find a particular book in my local library and can barely wait for them to arrange. 

Beginning of this year, I made a resolution to read atleast 20 books (of all genre) this year. While reading "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins, it suddenly occurred to me, why not talk about good books on the blog. Everyone needs a good recommendation. Right?

So, today I talk about "The Girl on the Train". A total nail biter. This novel is perfectly paced, from its arresting beginning to its twist ending; it's not an easy book to put down.Very cleverly written. 

A story about three women whose lives interlink tragically; Alcoholic Rachel, Complicated Megan and Anna, the new love of Rachel's ex-Tom. 
Rachel is the main narrator of this novel and is obsessed with Megan and her husband as they represent to her the perfect relationship which she once had. She doesn't know them, but watches them everyday through the windows of a train she takes each morning and evening to commute to and from London. One day, Megan goes missing and Rachel finds herself unable to stay away and gets involved in the investigation....

It's a great vacation read. Perfect for summers. I seriously recommend this book.

Why are we always Shopping?

We are always shopping. We shop and shop and shop and trash things in 6 months or 1 year and shop again...I often wonder, our primary identity has become that of a consumer than of a doctor, scientist, engineer, mother or a teacher. We are just consumers. Consumers who are never satisfied and always on search for something even better. If not, then why would people change their iPhone every year?

Does it make sense at all?

You buy a kindle and before you could enjoy it, you see a commercial about the new kindle fire which is a bright, flashy, touch-screeny masterpiece of awesomeness. It has all the bells and whistles you could ever want in an e-reader. And then you look down to the kindle in your hand. Suddenly its gray screen and plastic buttons seemed dull, archaic. The one thing that you've wanted for so long, turned out to be not so good...

Advertisements...Oh Lord! How much I hate them. As Annie Leonard says "They just make us unhappy with what we have. We are told our hair is wrong, our skin is wrong, our clothes are wrong, our furniture is wrong, our car is wrong, WE are wrong. But it can all be made right if we just go shopping. Shop so that we can say we have the biggest, best and brightest. Because somehow that determines our worth. It makes us look smart, valuable and better than everyone else. Only, in reality, it makes us fools. Because it won’t be long before we’re panicking about having the next best thing. And the cycle continues."

I read a book called "The story of stuff" by Annie Leonard and it was an eye opener for me and answered many questions that I always had in my mind. Why do we shop so much? Why we have too much of stuffs? Why are we never satisfied? What happens to the stuffs we trash?

One thing that I have understood, in order to meet our emotional and social needs through shopping, we are over consuming far more stuffs than our planet can sustain. And all that, to demonstrate our self worth through the stuffs we own?  We seriously need to rethink our ways. We need to focus more on quality of our life, rather than quantity of our stuff.